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CHAPTER 41
LET the islands keep silence before me, and the nations take new strength: let them come near, and then speak, let us come near to judgment together.
2 Who has raised up the just one from the east, has called him to follow him? he shall give the nations in his sight, and he shall rule over kings: he shall give them as the dust to his sword, as stubble driven by the wind, to his bow.
3 He shall pursue them, he shall pass in peace, no path shall appear after his feet.
4 Who has wrought and done these things, calling the generations from the beginning? I the Lord, I am the first and the last.
5 The islands saw it, and feared, the ends of the earth were astonished, they drew near, and came.
6 Every one shall help his neighbour, and shall say to his brother: Be of good courage.
7 The coppersmith striking with the hammer encouraged him that forged at that time, saying: It is ready for soldering: and he strengthened it with nails, that it should not be moved.
8 But you Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend:
9 In whom I have taken you from the ends of the earth, and from the remote parts thereof have called you, and said to you: you are my servant, I have chosen you, and have not cast you away.
10 Fear not, for I am with you: turn not aside, for I am your God: I have strengthened you, and have helped you, and the right hand of my just one has upheld you.
11 Behold all that fight against you shall be confounded and ashamed, they shall be as nothing, and the men shall perish that strive against you.
12 You shall seek them, and shall not find the men that resist you: they shall be as nothing: and as a thing consumed the men that war against you.
13 For I am the Lord your God, who take you by the hand, and say to you: Fear not, I have helped you.
14 Fear not, you worm of Jacob, you that are dead of Israel: I have helped you, said the Lord: and your Redeemer the Holy One of Israel.
15 I have made you as a new thrashing wain, with teeth like a saw: you shall thrash the mountains, and break them in pieces: and shall make the hills as chaff.
16 You shall fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and you shall rejoice in the Lord, in the Holy One of Israel you shall be joyful.
17 The needy and the poor seek for waters, and there are none: their tongue has been dry with thirst. I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
18 I will open rivers in the high bills, and fountains in the midst of the plains: I will turn the desert into pools of waters, and the impassable land into streams of waters.
19 I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, and the thorn, and the myrtle, and the olive tree: I will set in the desert the fir tree, the elm, and the box tree together:
20 That they may see and know, and consider, and understand together that the hand of the Lord has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it.
21 Bring your cause near, said the Lord: bring hither, if you have any thing to allege, said the King of Jacob.
22 Let them come, and tell us all things that are to come: tell us the former things what they were: and we will set our heart upon them, and shall know the latter end of them, and tell us the things that are to come.
23 Shew the things that are to come hereafter, and we shall know that ye are gods. Do ye also good or evil, if you can: and let us speak, and see together.
24 Behold, you are of nothing, and your work of that which has no being: he that has chosen you is an abomination.
25 I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come from the rising of the sun: he shall call upon my name, and he shall make princes to be as dirt, and as the potter treading clay.
26 Who bath declared from the beginning, that we may know: and from time of old, that we may say: you are just. There is none that shews, nor that foretells, nor that hears your words.
27 The first shall say to Sion: Behold they are here, and to Jerusalem I will give an evangelist.
28 And I saw, and there was no one even among them to consult, or who, when I asked, could answer a word.
29 Behold they are all in the wrong, and their works are vain: their idols are wind and vanity.